What does it mean to build a $200M startup while staying grounded in Buddhist values? In this episode, Ying Cong, co-founder of Glints, shares candid stories from his entrepreneurial journey—from navigating PR crises to letting go of ego and status. With wisdom drawn from his daily two-hour meditation practice and real-world experience, he explores how Dhamma can shape leadership, decisions, and even definitions of success.

🧘 Meditation in the Startup World – How mindfulness helps in managing crises and emotional highs and lows

💸 The Joy of Giving – Why true generosity pierces the ego and transforms workplace culture

🌊 Samsara on Steroids – Lessons in impermanence from building (and rebuilding) a company over 11 years

#StartupWisdom #MindfulLeadership #BuddhistEntrepreneur #SamsaraOnSteroids #DhammaInBusiness 

About the Speaker:

👤Ying Cong is a long-time meditator and the co-founder of Glints, a leading career platform in Southeast Asia. Over the past decade, he helped scale the company from an idea incubated by JFDI to a regional startup featured in major publications like The Straits Times and Yahoo News. As Glints’ former CTO and current machine learning engineer, he has worked on recommender systems, fraud detection, and data infrastructure—though he jokes that most of it is just “glorified data cleaning.”

His Dhamma journey began in his teenage years and continues to deepen through regular meditation, observing the precepts, and periods of monastic training in the Thai forest tradition. He is quietly exploring how to balance the responsibilities of lay life with the path of practice.

Transcript: https://bit.ly/hol-ep-60

Timestamps:

(00:00) – Startup life as “samsara on steroids”

(00:50) – Introduction to guest: Ying Cong, co-founder of Glints

(02:02) – Ying Cong’s Buddhist background and early monastic experiences

(02:48) – Why he meditates two hours a day and how he finds time

(04:34) – How meditation helped during a major PR crisis

(05:00) – The PR crisis story: a job listing gone wrong

(07:31) – Learning to face problems directly, like in meditation

(08:46) – Reputation: years to build, seconds to lose

(09:37) – The joy of giving and overcoming stinginess

(11:15) – A COVID layoff decision and the pain of letting go

(13:48) – Choosing compassion: giving severance from personal funds

(15:10) – Letting go of attachment to money and ego

(16:21) – Building something meaningful through self-development

(16:50) – Startup life and the eight worldly winds

(17:23) – From financial freedom to finding deeper meaning

(18:01) – “Making it” then losing it: a funding disappointment

(19:38) – People come and go: the pain of team members leaving

(21:05) – Impermanence and the constant cycle of change

(21:47) – Reflections on the Buddha’s noble search

(23:02) – Developing wisdom and seeing patterns of impermanence

(23:36) – Closing Reflection

Special thanks to our sponsors:

Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang, Wang Shiow Mei, Ong Chye Chye, Melvin, Yoke Kuen, Nai Kai Lee, Amelia Toh, Hannah Law, Shin Hui Chong

Sponsor us here: https://handfulofleaves.life/support/

Editor of this episode: Aparajita Ghose

Website: aparajitayoga.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLdn8TJKbY1uQ9PQr5AUsA

Transcribers of this episode: Hong Jiayi, Cheryl Cheah, Tan Si Jing, Bernice Bay

Visual and Sound Effects: Anton Thorne, Tan Pei Shan, Ang You Shan 

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